The Illustrated the Return of the King (Señor de los Anillos) (Lord of the Rings, #2)

by J. R. R. Tolkien

Alan Lee (Illustrator)

A one-volume collector's edition containing the complete texts: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, and six appendices. "So relevant to the actual human situation yet so free from allegory . . . What fine shading there is in the variations of style to meet the endless diversity of scenes and characters." -- C. S. Lewis

• ISBN10: 0261103407
• ISBN13: 9780261103405
• Publish Date: 4 November 1996 (first published 11 November 1954)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 11 January 2003
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Edition: New edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 440
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

The Lord of the Rings is not The Hobbit. If you have tried The Hobbit and didn't love it, you're probably not going to like The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit is the epitome of the perfect fantasy tale. The kind you want to sit around a campfire and hear told with dramatic exaggeration. It has a dragon and dwarves, a wizard and one lone hobbit who turns out to be the bravest of them all.

But The Lord of the Rings is not The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings is The Hobbit's meticulous, older and more serious brother who is going to sit you down and tell you an epic tale of adventure that spans four ages with maps, appendices and side trips delving into the history of many people and a world of places. If you don't like the base elements of The Hobbit, you're going to hate Lord of the Rings because The Lord of the Rings is just a long drawn out, denser version.

J.R.R. Tolkien has not just written a story. He's written an entire world of stories. He pretty much spent a lifetime writing and bringing to life Middle Earth and it's freaking incredible.

Is it perfect? No. But any criticisms don't detract from the highly imaginative work this is - or from my enjoyment of it.

5 stars. It's a classic.